


A Salt Wife

by saltandbyrne



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Bottom Billy Russo, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dark, Dissociation, F/M, Face-Fucking, Foster Care, Game of Thrones References, Homophobic Language, Jealousy, M/M, Military, Minor Character Death, Musical References, Obsession, Pining, Pre-Series, Rape Roleplay, Rough Sex, Slurs, Underage Prostitution, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships, top Frank Castle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:32:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/pseuds/saltandbyrne
Summary: The Ballad of Billy Russo.





	A Salt Wife

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a little twitter exchange I had with mostly10 a few days after I watched The Punisher and lost my mind.
> 
> There are tons of musical references in this. I heard Ben Barnes [singing Christmas carols](https://twitter.com/benbarnes/status/945393823974346753) and couldn't stop thinking about what a beautiful voice Billy Russo must have.
> 
> If you aren't familiar with The Crystals' chilling [He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f20Oz9Yr_So) go have a listen before you read this.
> 
> I made a [Playlist on Spotify.](https://open.spotify.com/user/saltandbyrne/playlist/2Q77m3EJwmQbJkXqMJHBdE) All the songs I mention (and lots more) are on there!
> 
> Please be cautious reading this, as it contains childhood sexual abuse. This is not a love story.
> 
> A million thank you's to silver9mm for the lightning beta read. This wouldn't exist without exaggeratedspecificity's endless cheerleading while I sobbed over these two. Love you.

Dolores Esposito’s house smells so much better than Billy’s last one. 

It’s a third-floor walkup in one of the tenement buildings behind the Walgreens.  His caseworker sighs as he shuts the door to the run-down lobby and contemplates the stairs.

“Mrs. Esposito, this is William Russo.”

Billy’s not in the mood for the charming smile today. It still smarts a little on the left side from Kyle Pinkhurst’s right hook.

“ _ Miss _ Esposito.”

All Billy sees when he looks up are boobs.

“Can’t be a misses without a mister.”

Miss Esposito leans down and gives Billy a conspiratorial wink before she bats spider-long lashes at his caseworker.  Sal Romero seems as immune to Miss Esposito’s buxom charm as he is out of breath from her stairs.

Billy’s learned to tune out the chatter during his handovers.  If people are going to talk about him like he’s not there, he may as well not be. 

He peeks behind the formidable mountain of Miss Esposito’s hips.  A short hallway opens into a fairly large living room.  It’s as clean as it is shabby.  There’s not a speck of dust floating in the sunlight that cuts through the blinds.  Colors that were once bright are faded with years of sun and wear, but there’s an exuberance in the avocado-green sofa and lemon-yellow curtains and chili-pepper-orange wallpaper that’s matched by Miss Esposito’s warm, overly made-up smile.

“You can call me Dolores, papi.”

Sal is mumbling something about fights and problems but Billy just lets it fade out.  Whatever she’s cooking smells delicious.

“Hope you like rice and beans, kid.”

~

“This is one of my favorites.”

Dolores is always playing music.  She has records, the old-fashioned kind, big stacks of them on shelves so heavy they slump in the middle. 

There’s one other boy in the house.  James Roh is a skinny black kid who’s mostly deaf and always seems to be eating.  They shovel Dolores’ arroz con gandules into their mouths and watch James’ most prized possession, a subtitled VHS of Conan the Barbarian.  Billy can act out the entire “lamentations of the women” speech by the third time.

Dolores shows him how to slip the records out of their sleeves and settle them onto the spindle of her record player.  It’s a piece of furniture in its own right, a big boxy thing with dark wood scrolling along the sides.  She holds his hand and lets him place the needle on the spinning record.  Del Shannon’s name whirls around in a pink kaleidoscope as he starts crooning about little runaways.

“You know how to dance, Billy?”

James teaches him how to sign.  He has to repeat a lot of things but Billy picks up quick.  Billy won’t know how special this is for a long time, his ability to remember something when he’s only seen it once or twice, his gift for memorization and mimicry. 

Dolores spins him around the living room to her favorite old girl groups, where everyone sings in perfect harmony and every lucky guy is called “baby.”  Billy memorizes all of them, every lyric, every drawn out “I love you.” 

He shares a room with James.  James loves comic books, especially Batman. 

“I don’t get it.  Why doesn’t he use guns?”

Billy’s not sure how to sign “guns” so he just mimes shooting at James’ rolling eyes.

“Because he’s better than that.”

Batman sounds like an idiot.  All that money and he’s running around beating the shit out of bank robbers.

“Time for bed!”

Dolores’ dress has faded sunflowers all over it and it’s a little too tight across her boobs.  She always makes herself pretty, even if they’re just home all day because it’s raining.  She herds them into the bathroom, pointing at their toothbrushes.

“You have to take care of your teeth, Billy.”

She tugs her cheek aside without smudging any of her orange-red lipstick.

“See?”

She bends down so he can see the gaps in her smile.

“That’s how you know someone grew up poor, they’re missing a bunch of teeth like me.”

Billy doesn’t know if his mother has all her teeth.  He brushes his in silence while Dolores hums to herself about dream lovers.

~

It’s a strange thing for Billy’s body to do.  A sprawl.  Stomach-down on Dolores’ carpet and his head cradled in one elbow, Billy lets the needle drop on a record he’s never heard her play.

The bass line creeps out like it could touch him.  The only percussion to start is a single burst of something metallic, a triangle?  Billy rocks his hips side to side with the slow beat.

_ He hit me _

_ And it felt like a kiss _

Most of Dolores’ music makes him feel silly.  This song is like watching a scary movie.  Goosebumps prickle his arms and settle heavy in his belly where it’s rocking in rhythm against the rug. 

_ He hit me _

_ But it didn’t hurt me… _

Hitting and kissing aren’t supposed to go together but sometimes they do.  Billy drags the healing bruise on his jaw along the soft inside of his arm. 

_ If he didn't care for me _

_ I could have never made him mad. _

James has his head buried in a comic book, oblivious to Billy on the floor.  Billy swallows, tucks his bottom lip between his teeth, rolls it around.  Dolores is cooking, chicken by the smell of it.  He’s hungry but all he feels in his belly is ice.

_ But he hit me, _

_ And I was glad. _

“I don’t like this one, papi.”

He jumps.  Dolores can be soft on her feet for a fat lady.

“Should’ve gotten rid of it years ago.”

She clucks her tongue and lifts the needle. 

“That’s not love, you know that, right?”

She slips the LP back into its case and sighs. 

“You don’t ever hit a woman, Billy, no matter how crazy she makes you.  You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The ice in his belly twists into rocks.  She’s mad at him.  He likes it here.

“I’m sorry, Miss Dolores, I didn’t mean –“

“Shh, it’s ok, papi.”

She slides the record back onto the shelf and plucks a new one out.  The Platters.

“Let’s listen to this one.”

The falsetto opening of “Only You” peals out as she offers him her hand and hauls him to his feet.  The knots in his stomach melt away as she twirls him toward the kitchen.

“Come help me with the platanos, Billy.”

~

He’s only heard James speak once. 

He’s signing so fast Billy can’t keep up.  D-o-l-o-r-e-s stairs chest fall phone please.

Phone.

“Dolores.”  Her name sounds different in James’ flat, nasal voice. 

Billy stumbles out after him, almost dropping the boxy, cordless phone James dumps in his hands.  Out the hallway and down one flight of stairs and there she is, slumped around the banister, skirt rucked up past her knees where her thighs look like cottage cheese.  He’s never seen her bare legs before.  Her hair is still perfect, the baby curls she slicks to her temples with Aquanet untouched by the disgrace all around her.  Green-brown rectangles tied with string spill out around her.  Pasteles.

She was bringing Mr. O’Brien some pasteles.

Billy dials 9-1-1 and suddenly finds himself the voiceless one.  He bangs on every door on the second floor until he’s swarmed with a chorus of “Ay, Dios mio” and “Good Lord” and “9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”  Linda Cruz from 2A takes the phone from him before he drops it.

The last thing Billy ever does for Dolores is straighten her dress before anyone else sees her like this.

~

“How old are you, kid?”

“Eleven.”

His foster mom Ellen’s “boyfriend” Jim has a rattail and an old pickup that smells like an ashtray.  This is the second time Billy’s met him.

“He’s eleven, El?”

“If he says so.”

Ellen’s halfway through her first bottle in a flight of Boone’s Farm’s finest.  She’s parked in the ratty recliner that seems to double as her favorite place to sleep when she and Jim aren’t having disgusting, grunting sex in her bedroom.

“Let’s go for a ride, kid.”

Billy has a knife in his pocket.  His breath fogs the air as he climbs into Jim’s truck. 

“Where’re we going?”

There’s a part of him that knows the answer already.  The night races past, black and cold against the signs pointing them to  _ Albany, The Capital City! _

“Look, kid, you know, uh, paying for all your food and stuff, you know, it’s expensive.”

Ellen gets exactly $313 a month to house him.  That’s a lot of Boone’s Farm.

“So, we’re going to go see a friend of mine.”

“What kind of friend?”

Billy’s got a knife in his pocket but he also has no cash and even fewer prospects for making it on his own.  He chews his lip and weighs the odds against the rising tightness in his chest.

“Alright, you seem like a smart kid, so here’s the deal.  You spend some time with this, uh, friend of mine, you behave?  I’ll cut you in.  How does twenty bucks sound?”

“Fifty.”

They’re in the city now, driving down sleepy Capital district streets that are the nicest Albany has to offer.  No one in this neighborhood calls Jim a friend.

“I want fifty.”

“Got ourselves a businessman here.”

“I’ll do whatever he wants.”

They pull up to a red light.  Jim eyes him, up and down, fingers tapping against the steering wheel.

“If he asks, tell him you’re nine.”

It’s a hotel.  Billy’s only seen hotels in passing, real ones like this with crystal chandeliers in the lobby and doormen who wear white gloves.  His cheeks flush at his own shabby clothes – hand-me-down jeans and an old parka that’s meant for a shorter, fatter frame than his own. 

Jim seems as uncomfortable as Billy.  They ride the elevator in silence.  It’s the first time Billy’s heard music playing in an elevator.

The first thing Billy notices is the suit.  Suits are strange.  They can look everything from pathetic to jaw-dropping, cheap to impossibly expensive, funereal to ostentatious.  There’s a language to suits that Billy hasn’t been able to memorize yet.

The man who opens the door is wearing a beautiful suit.  Gray, pinstriped, it’s a perfect offset for the salt and pepper of his hair and the shocking, animal green of his eyes.  Billy’s sick to his stomach and swooning on his feet all at once.

Years later, a jarring moment will come when Billy realizes this man is a successful politician who built his senate seat on draconian drug laws and welfare reform.  Right now, he just looks like someone who’s had everything in life that Billy’s missed out on.

Men have looked at him all his life.  There’s a part of Billy that shuts off when someone touches his face like this, cups his chin and sizes him up.  He doesn’t get a name, he’s just “Hey, kid, how old are you?”

“Nine, sir.”

He’s tall for his age but he has a babyface, will until the day he loses everything.  Gray Suit licks his lips as he takes Billy’s ill-fitting clothes off.  Even when they’re both naked, they’re not equal.  Power is its own garment.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

It’s like floating.  Like the pool at the Y, when your head’s underwater and all the noise is muffled and sluggish.  Gray Suit’s tender with him, strokes him all over, even sucks Billy’s soft prick into his mouth. 

On a bed he didn’t know could be so soft, Billy wraps his too-long legs around Gray Suit’s waist and whispers in his ear.

“If you give me a hundred dollars you can put it in me.”

And suddenly, he’s back on Dolores’ floor, rocking his hips side to side to a bass line that makes him feel nothing but icy cold inside.

~

“You some kind of fag or something?”

“No, sir.”

Billy shifts in his sneakers and eyes Mr. Beyer’s basement workout room slash World War II memorabilia shrine.

At 14, Billy’s not even a virgin.  Sex with girls isn’t terrible.  It feels good, like taking a piss when you’ve had to hold it or letting out a pent-up sneeze.  It’s another thing for him to get good at, another language he will parse and memorize and master before he’s eighteen.

“I have a girlfriend, sir.”

Had is probably more accurate.  His new foster home means a new school and he’s pretty sure Mary Rifkin isn’t sweet enough on him to cross county lines.

“Good, that’s good.”

There are plaques with Bible quotes hanging all over Mrs. Beyer’s kitchen.  It’s warmer in there.

“Gotta be careful, though, you got kind of a queer-bait face.”

Better to keep silent on that one.

“Girls go for that, though, not that I’d know.”

Mr. Beyer grins, like he imagines himself to be ruggedly handsome instead of paunchy and half-bald.

“You work out, Billy?”

“At school.”

Billy’s still skinny but years of jungle-gym warfare have taught him it’s better than being fat.

“Good, good.  Important for a man to stay fit.”

Mr. Beyer racks up what Billy pretends is an impressive set on his bench.  He grunts through ten reps, his face getting redder with each one.

It’s not the worst thing Billy’s watched a middle-aged man do in a basement.

“Your turn.”

The weights are too heavy for him, which pleases Mr. Beyer to no end.  He slips a ten disc off either side of the bar.

“Boys, dinner’s ready!” Mrs. Beyer hollers down the stairs in her shrill voice.

“Should I go help her?”

Billy would rather lay out plates than lay here with Mr. Beyer staring at his chest.

“The kitchen is a woman’s domain, Billy.”

He lifts the weight bar out of Billy’s hands and settles it on the rack.  He grins, with teeth that look like he’s never had that much money.

“Besides, you don’t keep a dog and bark yourself.”

~

Mr. Schien is a faggot.

That seems to be the consensus at school, where the court of public opinion has let Billy slip by as something of a mysterious heartthrob and crucified the two other boys from his group home as a spaz and a nerd, respectively.  They know better than to acknowledge Billy in the halls.

Billy’s got his arm around Tina McGovern and his Pumas up on his desk when his teacher walks in.  He doesn’t move as class starts.

High school could be a hell for Billy – poor, parentless, possessed of enough athletic prowess to be good in all sports but exceptional in none.  He fights too dirty for the wrestling team and even hustling three jobs after school and weekends, he can’t afford his own car.  Still, this is the first real empire that Billy will build. 

“Hey, you gonna beatbox for us?”

Everyone laughs at Billy’s joke as Mr. Schien humps an oversized, outdated boombox onto his desk.  The big sticker reading “TROYHSAV” is half-peeled off, like someone would want to steal a piece of shit like that. 

“Alright, everyone, open your books to page 73.”

Mr. Schien has an endless assortment of sweater vests that fascinate Billy.  They make him look older and fatter than he actually is.  This is one of Billy’s great hobbies, stripping people down to the flesh and bones in his mind, seeing them as they are without the Jnco shorts and Polo shirts and Mudd jeans that all the girls love.  Clothes make the man, but all of Mr. Schien’s clothes are so ugly it’s an affront to his senses.  Besides, gay guys are supposed to be stylish.

“Even you, Mr. Russo.”

Billy slips on his “Who, me?” charming face and cracks his book.  It’s a poem. 

“Care to do the honors?”

Billy winks at Tina, slides enough tongue along his lip to make her blush.  Being forced to center stage is always a good opportunity to remind everyone that he’s fucking the third-hottest girl in school.

_ Half a league, half a league,  _

_  Half a league onward,  _

_ All in the valley of Death  _

_  Rode the six hundred.  _

_ “Forward, the Light Brigade!  _

_ Charge for the guns!” he said:  _

_ Into the valley of Death  _

_  Rode the six hundred.  _

The kid in front of him picks up the next part and they roundabout until the end.  It’s less gay than most poems.

“Now, when Tennyson published this in 1854, he originally used a pseudonym because he thought it might be too scandalous for the poet laureate of England.”

This doesn’t get the reaction Mr. Schien was clearly hoping for but he soldiers on.

“What is this poem about?  Anyone?”

“War?”

Donna Hartsford wears about 18 coats of black eyeliner and worships Marilyn Manson.  Underneath her platform boots and strategically ripped fishnets Billy can see her for what she is – comfortably upper middle class and inexplicably furious about it.

“We have a live one!  Yes, the futility of war, what one could argue is the endless theme of millennia of literature spanning from Homer to the present day.”

Donna rolls her eyes.

“Well I have a treat for you, Miss Hartsford.  This stuffy old poem about war inspired what could arguably be…”

Mr. Schien pauses for effect.  He has a coffee stain on the neckline of his sweater vest.

“The greatest heavy metal song of all time.”

Guitars come blaring out of his tinny speakers and God help them all, Mr. Schien is doing air guitar.  It’s the first of many times in Billy’s life that he will want to shoot someone out of pure second-hand embarrassment.

_ Theirs not to make reply,  _

_ Theirs not to reason why,  _

_ Theirs but to do and die:  _

_ Into the valley of Death  _

_  Rode the six hundred.  _

~

Billy didn’t know you could take it up the ass without it hurting until he enlisted.

Captain Eugene Woods could be a TV news anchor or the handsomest dad on a sitcom.  A chiseled jaw, a trim waist, ice blue eyes and a thick head of white hair.  He gives them a speech about his own time in basic, throws in a few good lines about discipline and how the streets of heaven are guarded by United States Marines.

They put Billy on double rations to bulk him up.  Not his fault he’s got a metabolism like a jet engine, and he’ll take it over being one of the fatties on restriction any day.  He still maxes out on all his fitness tests.

Being at heart a combination of rote memorization and physical anguish, boot camp is relatively easy for Billy.  Red-faced men screaming in his face, dreamless sleep interrupted by loud noises, aches and pains in places he didn’t know could hurt – none of this is new.  He makes easy friends with his fellow recruits, most of whom are as gullible for his charm and wisecracks as a bunch of high school girls.

On week four he gets summoned to Captain Woods’ office during his square-away. 

“At ease, Russo.”

Billy’s hackles are up the second he walks through the door.  He hasn’t done anything exceptional to either distinguish himself or land himself in shit this early.

“Sir.”

“I want to show you something.”

Framed on Captain Woods’ wall is a picture of the Albany Academy football team.  Billy doesn’t know shit about Albany Academy except that it’s where a bunch of other fuckheads from his group home used to talk about robbing rich kids.  Kneeling in the front row is a sandy-haired, younger version of the Captain. 

“Nice to meet a fellow New Yorker, sir.”

Captain Woods offers him a drink Billy’s not supposed to have, sits next to him on the leather sofa under all his framed pictures and letters of honor.  He’s got an easy smile and sharp eyes that like finding Billy’s mouth when he’s answering questions.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re very handsome, Billy?”

“Couple of girls back home, sir.”

It’s a fairly neutral answer. 

“Please, call me Gene.”

The hand on Billy’s knee is anything but.

It’s almost a relief.  Billy knows this game.  He’s been squeezing currency out of men like this for years.  While someone else might no-homo right out of this, scramble to his feet and back away, Billy just spreads his legs a little wider and smiles through his eyelashes.

“Gene.”

~

He’s never had someone’s mouth down there before.

Sex with Gene is different than anyone else Billy’s known.  He likes kissing, does it first thing after Billy’s discreetly escorted to his office.  He talks a lot, too, tells Billy he’s beautiful and calls him sweetheart while he peels Billy’s uniform off his drained, aching body.  Getting fucked after a thousand crunches isn’t a picnic but Gene’s tender with him.

“You taste so good.”

On his back on Gene’s leather couch with his legs pushed up against his chest, it’s the most comfortable Billy’s been all day.  Getting his asshole licked never seemed like anything of great interest to Billy, but Gene’s a goddamn genius at it.

Gene kisses down his back, bites at his thighs with a hunger Billy learns to crave.  He gets his tongue inside Billy like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, like they aren’t stealing time that surely someone will start to notice soon. 

This is the strangest thing to learn.  Billy can spit back every stupid mnemonic they fire at him, endure the physical trials and endless, institutionalized bullying.  Feeling his skin crawl with need, with anything other than underwater detachment when Gene sinks his fingers inside him and doesn’t stop until Billy wants more, arches back for it or wraps his daddy-long-legs around Gene’s waist – that’s the unexpected lesson basic wrings from his body.  If sex had always suffocated Billy’s endlessly humming brain, Gene’s generous cock inside him drowns it all out with singing white noise.

Billy likes doing it bent over his desk.  Gene’s family looks like they came with the expensive silver frame – a wasp-waisted wife with towering blonde hair, two kids destined for prom regency and smooth hands.  Gene’s “want to feel you come, baby,” honey-drips his insides when Billy’s fuck-smiling at his wife.

“Woods’ sweetheart,” he hears one of the guys mutter in explanation when he ambles into Woods’ office one afternoon.  Billy’s not the only one on base.  There’s a handful of slim pretties like him who seem to disappear sporadically.  Sweethearts.

_ Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts, _ Billy hums to himself as he cleans his own jizz off his belly.  Gene always gets him off, likes it when Billy’s looking at him when he does. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Gene whispers, over and over, his thick, gray-furred arms wrapped around Billy from behind.  He kisses Billy’s neck and breathes him in, cradles Billy’s head in his lap and strokes over his cheek.  He never asks about the scars on Billy’s shoulder.

“I’ll miss you.”

He’ll see Gene a few times after basic, and the care packages of glorious clean socks and candy he gets on all his deployments will always have a plain card with “G” handwritten on the inside.

There’s a box waiting for him when he gets to Kunar.  Billy spins some story about the married captain’s wife back home who’s carrying a torch for him.  Everyone takes his candy and makes MILF jokes, except the brown-eyed, bull-necked guy with a Queens accent.

“Thought girls usually sent romantic shit.”

He bites into one of Billy’s Snickers bars and gives him a look that strips Billy bare.

“Not socks.”

That’s how he meets Frank.

~

It’s Zeke’s turn to pick the music.

Andrews (with a first name like Gaylord, Billy would only answer to his last name, too) has a portable speaker that unfolds like one of those old altar paintings.  He’d been kind enough to offer it to their unit to take turns DJ’ing during their scant downtime.

“You know what I miss?”

Zeke clicks through the fancy new MP3 player his brother had given him.

“Pussy?” at least three voices chime in, Billy’s included.  Zeke snorts.

“Smoking weed with my brother and listening to this shit.”

Billy’s smiles at the opening bars of C.R.E.A.M.

“Ah, this is my shit.”

“Please, white boy.”

Billy feigns offence and springs to his feet just as Method Man finishes stuttering about cash ruling everything around him.

“I grew up on the crime side, the New York Times side, staying alive was no jive, at second hands, Moms bounced on old man –“

“And then we moved to Shaolin land!”

Zeke almost falls off his bed laughing while the other guys explode into applause.  Billy keeps going, red in the face as he recites every line.  He and Zeke lose it at the “made my eyes bleed” line.

Billy bows for his audience, his smile faltering when he turns to Frank.  He’s staring at Billy, head cocked to the side, his book splayed across his chest.  The song plays out and Zeke switches to some Mobb Deep, which Billy could also recite if pressed.

“Big fan of Wu-Tang, huh?”

Billy shrugs and reaches under his bed for the copy of Return of the Native he’s been re-re-re-reading.

“Shit was popular with some of my foster brothers.”

Frank crosses his arms over his chest.

“When’s the last time you heard that song?”

“I don’t know, couple years I guess?”

He darts a glance at Frank, not that he’ll get much.  The guy isn’t big on facial expressions.  While he can read other people a mile away, Frank only gives the smallest purses of his lips and wrinkles of his forehead.

“So you know every single word to a rap song you haven’t heard in years and don’t even like?”

Frank’s expressions are miniscule but the way he looks at Billy unnerves him.  Frank just stares him down and suddenly Billy’s hungry for pasteles and humming old doo-wop songs to himself in the backseat of Sal Romero’s car.

“Some of us got more than meatloaf between the ears, Frankie-boy.”

“That’s why I get by on my good looks.”

Frank gives him the finger and goes back to his Vonnegut.

~

Billy’s still got gravel embedded in his knuckles.

They’re all the worse for wear but the mood back in their tent is boisterous.  Billy’s hardly naïve enough to drink the “we got the bad guys” kool-aid, but there’s something to be said for standing side-by-side with your brothers and killing men who would just as soon kill you.  Filthy and jubilant, they slap each other on the back, pound their chests, start recounting battle stories that will age into tired old tales for their grandchildren if they’re lucky.  The air is charged with victory, exaltation, relief, the stench of men soaked in sweat and muck.  Bloodlust.

Frank comes with him to pack out.  It’ll be dawn soon.  Dawn looks different here, purple-blue like a deep bruise rising off the mountains.  They shoulder gear and double back before Billy stops in his tracks.  He knows those noises.

In the relative privacy between two Jeeps, Zeke’s face-first over the hood with a hand around his dick and Andrews ploughing into him from behind.  Billy motions for Frank to take a look. 

It’s certainly not surprise on Frank’s face.  There’s a quick smile, gone before Frank looks back at him and rolls his eyes.  They drop their shit at depot and head back to barracks.  Billy hangs back outside the tent door.

“Zeke and Andrews, huh?”

Frank stills, eyeing him without turning his face.  Billy can barely see the way his jaw works in the dim pre-dawn light.

“Man has needs.”

Frank shrugs, blows out a breath through his nose before he turns to Billy.  One eyebrow cocks in a barely discernible “got something to say about it?” arch that wouldn’t even register coming from someone else.  From Frank it’s like a scream.

Here, on the liminal edges of the known universe, where a good day is dropping bodies and a bad one is bagging them up, where the sky is black-eyed and Billy’s still got four headshots of adrenaline pumping through his veins, here is where he’ll risk it.

“You got needs, Frankie?”

They’re on top of each other every day. It’s still so different to step into Frank’s space like this, to dare him to look up at Billy’s face, feel the air swell when he takes a deep breath.

“It’s not like that.”

Frank looks, left, right, a sentinel sweep that hijacks Billy’s insides and thickens his tongue against his half-cocked backout answer.  Frank’s hand is huge on his shoulder.

“But, yeah, I got needs, Billy.”

~

_ He’s so fine _

_ Wish he were mine… _

He doesn’t give a shit who hears him.

_ That handsome boy over there _

_ The one with the wavy hair… _

Billy sings as loud as he likes when he showers up and cleans out his aching, Frank-loaded asshole.

_ He’s a soft-spoken guy… _

~

Frank’s a fucking killer.

Billy swears he can smell it, the sheer fucking danger that oozes out of Frank after they take down that entire hideout.  He’s Beowulf, he’s one of the berserkers of Mr. Schien’s English class, covered in blood and God knows what else while his eyes shine and he gives every one of them a ferocious, grunting pound on the back.

Billy’s never needed to get fucked so bad in his life.

He disappears just long enough to get himself prepped and grab the KY that Curtis keeps restocking their med kit with.  Bless him.

The rest of the guys know to give him and Frank a wide berth, just like they do for Zeke and Andrews, and Johnny and Carlos, and all the other twosomes that disappear into the bloodlust of the evening.  Sweethearts.

Everything’s dusty out here.  It gets on every surface, seeps into his pores and his bed and the socks that Gene still sends him.  A cloud of dust kicks up when Frank slams him back against a storage crate.

Frank’s affection is at its heart fraternal, a wrestling match where his dick happens to come out.  Slaps on the back, big bear hugs, a hand plastered on the back of Billy’s neck.  It still works Billy to putty, aches him on the inside as they tug shirts up and pants down.  He strokes his cock against Frank’s, even his oversize hand barely enough for both of them.

Frank claps his hand behind Billy’s head, presses their foreheads together, looks down while he breathes through his mouth like he’s oo-rah’ing his way through a battle zone. 

“Bill.”

Billy jacks their dicks, slow, savoring the fat throb of Frank’s cock, how fucking hard he is.  Frank’s so good when he’s like this, as much human as animal, snorting and stinking and leaking precome all over Billy’s hand. 

“Tell me you’re clean.”

Frank’s got gut-blood on his neck but he’s still worried about getting his dick dirty.

“I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready.”

He’s about to salute when Frank spins him face-down over their crate.  Some people have romantic getaways in the Catskills.  Billy has a crate where no one else in his unit fucks.

Frank’s hands are shaking when he spills a mess of lube on his cock and shoves some of it inside Billy.  Even Frank’s awkward, utilitarian fumbling makes Billy arch his back for it, spread his legs until his pants are taut between his ankles and he’s the right height for Frank to line up behind him.

“You gonna fuck me or just fingerbang me like we’re at junior prom all night?”

Frank’s so easy to play when he’s like this.  He grips the head of his cock up and sinks it in so fast Billy’s eyes might cross a little.  Billy hisses through his teeth as Frank sinks home.

“You like that shit?”

It never sounds like dirty talk out of Frank’s mouth, more like a genuine question that he’ll never understand the answer to.

“What’s the matter, you tired, Frankie?”

So easy.  Frank growls in his chest so loud Billy can almost feel it, wants to feel it so bad.  A lifetime of teasing has given Billy an endless source of taunts to get Frank’s blood up, make him fuck so hard the sweat pours off him.  He grips Billy’s waist until his palms slip with sweat and he has to wrap his arms around Billy’s damp, rabbit-kicking chest.  Frank can only fuck him so hard without holding onto him.

Frank’ll give him a reacharound if Billy makes him, but it only ends with Frank not looking him in the eye and Billy getting one of the worst handys of his life.  Billy grabs his cock in his hand and doesn’t have to do much else, not when Frank is fucking him hard enough to move Billy’s cock right along with him.  It’s a means to an end.  Frank grunts like he’s been shot when Billy spills over his hand and clenches up so tight a less determined man would be pushed out.  Frank just goes harder.

Billy reaches back over Frank’s shoulder, clamping his hand over Frank’s neck and not letting go until he feels the shift-halt-stutter of Frank’s about-to-nut pace.

“Finish inside me, come on.”

He smacks Frank, landing somewhere between his neck and his jaw.  Frank’s face is so close to his, his breath dampening Billy’s cheek, his sweat mingling with Billy’s own in his eyes.  Billy darts his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and closes his eyes.

He can feel Frank’s bloodcurdling growl when he comes.

~

Billy’s floating.  He wipes himself passably clean with one of the rags he’d stuffed in his pocket.  Like someone who’s only played pitcher, Frank doesn’t think about the mess he leaves behind before he wanders off the field.  Billy still tucks his shirt back in and hums as he walks back to their tent.  Billy gets shot at and almost blown up every other day here, but he’s never felt more at home or less in danger than when he strolls back into their tent to knowing smirks and Zeke singing off-key to Biz Markie. 

He should know better.

This feeling, this  _ One Fine Day _ , this  _ Will You Love Me Tomorrow _ , this  _ Baby, It’s You _ , feeling, this is what danger should feel like. 

~

“Uncle Billy!”

Ghostface would call this the white part of Queens.  Frank’s house in Bayside is as neat and tidy as a Hallmark card.  Maria kisses his cheek and Lisa gives him a squealing hug. 

“Good to see you, brother.”

It’s always shocking to see Frank smile so much.  He lets Maria boss him around the kitchen and gets Billy a beer after they eat Maria’s excellent manicotti. 

“I miss eating real food,” Billy jokes, fluent in his role as affable bachelor. 

“You’ve always got a plate at our house, Billy.”

Maria serves him seconds and puts the kids to sleep.  Billy helps with the dishes over Maria’s protests.  She’s got wrinkles around her eyes that he can only see when he’s this close to her.

Frank and Maria take the couch while Billy sprawls out on the loveseat.  Everyone’s been talking about Game of Thrones since they got back. 

“They say hard places breed hard men, and hard men rule the world.”

That’s bullshit.  Hard places breed cannon fodder and crackheads.  Spoken like a dick who grew up in a palace.  Theon Greyjoy is a weasel-faced fuck who looks like one of Billy’s old group home brothers.

“He says that you’re all reavers and rapers and no matter how many women you have, you’ll never be sat –“

“He’s right about us.  Our wives from the Iron Islands, they’re for breeding.”

Billy glances over at Frank and Maria.  Frank’s got his arm over her shoulders, got her tucked up against his chest all tiny and warm.  Her eyes shine in the blue light of Frank’s flatscreen.

“That’s not enough for us.  That’s why we take salt wives, the women we capture.”

Frank’s got a sleepy smile on his face and his head tucked on top of Maria’s.  Billy drains his beer.

“Father will punish me; he’ll call me a whore.”

“I’ve not paid you.”

The bathroom is the only fucking place in this house that isn’t plastered with pictures of Frank’s family.  Billy smiles in the mirror, smiles until it reaches his eyes, smiles as he pulls out his phone and scrolls through his contacts.

~

“Bitch.”

Her wrists are so small in his hand. 

“You fucking bitch.”

It’s muffled in waves of brown hair, where Billy’s breathing hot on her tear-streaked neck.  She thrashes beneath him, bucking up where she’s pinned under his weight.  He leans in, holds her wrists over his pillows, forces his knee between her clenched thighs. 

“Billy.”

Her makeup’s all fucked up.  She’s not wearing much but her mascara’s running down her cheeks in black stripes. 

“Not so pretty now, hm?”

His smile is all teeth as he unzips one-handed.  It kicks her up again, lands her knee against his ribs, almost slips one hand free from his bruise-grip around her wrists.  Almost.

She sobs his name when he rips her panties off.

He jacks her legs back open, forcing his own battle-strong leg between soft, creamy thighs. 

“Billy, please.”

She screams when he’s inside her.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

He reaches into the ripped-open front of her dress, his hand dark and desert-tanned against the creamy white and pale pink of floral fabric and flushed, fear-prickled skin.  He grabs one of her breasts, squeezing down to the nipple until fresh tears flow from her eyes.  Frank’s always talking about how much he misses her tits.

“Frankie doesn’t fuck you like this?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, wheezes her way through the next vicious thrusts he gives her.  That shit hurts.  He knows.

“Bill, you can’t.”

“I can do whatever.  The fuck.  I want.”

He grabs her jaw, squeezes until her mouth is fish-gaped and shaking. 

“Open your fucking eyes.”

She tries to look away until he gives her one good back-hand.  She chokes back a sob, her whole body shaking as he fucks her so hard she inches up his bed with each precise, controlled jab of his cock.  God, he’s fucking hard.

“You don’t get to have him.”

She barely struggles when he releases her wrists.  She’s a mess, ripped dress, ruined face, her hair streaming out in disarray around her.  Something like genuine terror flashes through her eyes when he leans in, forehead pressed to hers, and wraps his hand around her throat.

“You fucking cunt, you don’t get him.”

She gurgles Frank’s name when he comes.

Shower.  He needs to shower.

“Don’t leave.”

An ocean of hot water drenches him into some semblance of a person again.  She’s cleaned up perfectly when he comes out, even gives an appreciative glance at the towel wrapped around his waist.  He finds his wallet in its usual place on his desk.

“Sorry if I, uh, got a little carried away.”

She takes the extra couple hundred he slips her and shrugs.

“Open hand was part of the deal.”

She stretches her neck and tucks his tip into her nondescript purse.  In jeans and a plain black turtleneck, with all her makeup wiped off and reapplied via some hooker magic, she looks like someone’s hot mom en route to a PTA meeting.

“Sweetie, I’m one of the most expensive pro-subs in the city.  I could have slept through that.”

She winks at him.

“Thanks, Gina.”

She looks eerily like Maria but Billy likes her.  She’s got the business instincts of a shark and a gift for discretion.  There’s a straightforward way about her that always leaves Billy feeling like all this is just an honest exchange of goods and services.  Money can wash away buckets of violence.  Billy will send a wealth of business her way when he has high-end clients with particular tastes. 

“Besides, you’re a whole lot better looking than most of my regulars.”

Her security is waiting outside the door.  Billy sees her out before he pours himself a generous drink, the good shit he should save for a better occasion but he’s feeling festive.  It’s a rare night the roar under his skin goes this quiet. 

Two weeks until his next deployment.  He’ll be fine.

~

Basra.  Basra is a hell on earth and the best night of Billy Russo’s life.

“Kinda reminds me of Jersey.”

Billy sniffs at the air, curling his lip at the endless tire-fire, petrochemical refinery stink all around them. 

“Hey, don’t insult the birthplace of Springsteen.”

Billy smiles.  He knew Frank was going to say that.

Frank almost dies in Basra.  He’ll never tell the story that way but it’s true.  What was supposed to be recon turns into an ambush.  He spends ten hours back-to-back with Frank, running on dwindling ammo and Frank’s warm body next to his.  A lot of men die that night.

There’s nothing but gunfire and the ragged rhythm of Frank breathing for hours.  Frank’s determined to get them out alive but part of Billy wants to die here, wrapped in his brother-in arms.  Maybe part of him does.

In the end, he really will take Frank in a foxhole over any company on earth.  They make it out alive, but not before Frank takes a bullet to the chest.  He’ll see it’s Frank’s left shoulder once they make it back and Frank’s bellowing his way through field surgery like an angry bull.  All Billy can think when the shot zings past his head and lands in Frank’s massive, beautiful body is  _ that’s where his heart is _ .

What would it be like to touch him there.

Billy gets stitched and plastered and stuffed back into fighting shape.  He’s still oozing from five places when he finds Frank in the med tent.  He’s shirtless and covered in a breastplate of gauze on his left side. 

Carlos keeps an eye out.  He gets it.

“Goddamnit, Frankie.”

The tent’s still flapping behind him when Billy knees his way onto Frank’s cot, cradles his head as gingerly as he can stand. 

“I’m not gonna watch you die, Frankie.”

Frank winces when Billy presses their foreheads together.

“I ain’t dead yet, asshole.”

Billy snorts. 

“When that fucking mortar went, Frank, I thought it was over.”

There’s something intoxicating about Frank like this.  Eyelids heavy with the good shit they’ve got in his drip, he stares up at Billy and cracks half his bruised face into a smile.

“I didn’t.”

“The fuck do you know, Frankie.”

Billy’s splays his hand over Frank’s bare, impossibly warm chest, risking more than he should but it’s so easy when Frank’s docile and drugged.

“Because Bill the Beaut here would never let himself die in a desert shithole when his hair looked like crap.”

Frank’s hand is so big against his cheek.  Billy leans into it, lets his eyes close, lets the feeling in his chest split him open and claw its way to the surface.

It’s the first and only time they kiss.

~

Billy’s sucked plenty of dick in his life.

Some by choice, most by force, and none of them as jaw-achingly fat as Frank Castle’s.  There’s night’s where Frank’s gentle, where he sighs and checks his hips and doesn’t touch Billy’s head. 

Tonight, blessedly, is not one of those nights. 

They’re on leave in five days, Billy watched Frank kill four guys with nothing but his Ka-Bar, and he hasn’t taken a real breath in three minutes.  Frank had been on him the second they got back.  There’s a singular blackness behind Frank’s eyes that Billy could drown in. 

Frank hadn’t asked, he’d just worked his jaw and fixed Billy in his kill sights the second they were back on safe soil.  He’s still seething with violence and death-rattle spit-spray, all of it seeping out of his skin and into Billy’s clenching throat. 

Frank’s beautiful when he’s bloody.

Between the squicks and thwicks of Frank’s postbellum affection Billy looks up, wet-eyed and drooling spit onto his uniform.  Frank looms over him, muscles straining under his sweat-soaked undershirt, backlit by the fluorescent light of military normalcy.  Frank had practically dragged him here, pressed his hard cock against Billy’s leg and pushed him to his knees, unzipped himself like Billy’s mouth was his war-bride. 

_ What is best in life? _

It makes Frank’s lip curl up when he chokes on it.  Billy does it again, pathetic, messy, ugly-sounding, a thousand other things he’ll only ever be with Frank.  Frank’s got his hands in Billy’s hair as Billy wills one last favor out of him.

_ Look at me, Frank. _

Billy can keep his teeth to himself even when Frank’s fucking his face like he’s gonna put a baby in it.  Billy can keep a lot of shit to himself except when it comes to Frank.  He lets his lip peel back from his canines and suddenly he’s back in some Schenectady foster home, hiding his copy of Shakespeare under his bed.  Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.  His teeth scrape along Frank’s cock and earn him a furious flash of black-brown eyes.

The trick to smiling is to make it reach your eyes.  Tears trickle into the creases around Billy’s as he deepthroats Frank’s cock and dares him to look away.

Disgust and arousal are such similar faces.  Frank’s contorts, his lip rising up to show his teeth, the battered bridge of his nose folding in on itself, his eyebrows drawing in tight.  He looks like a beast, he looks like a benevolent god of war who will eviscerate him as soon as grace him with a glimpse of his face. 

He doesn’t look away as he unloads into Billy’s open, aching heart.

~

“I point, you shoot.”

Billy knows assholes like this inside and out.  Agent Orange doesn’t laugh at his Full Metal Jacket joke, but Frank does.

It takes a few weeks to break down the clannish lines across specialties.  The two SEALs walk around like their shit doesn’t stink and the Army guys are overly macho at every turn.  Frank bunks up next to him and the other leathernecks. 

Their first mission hammers most of that out.  At the end of the day they’re all good soldiers, even the pussy from Air Force.  They take out their target under heavy fire and learn each other’s post-battle rituals. 

Gunner’s a good guy.  He’s got a chapter and verse for every occasion but Billy still sees him sneak off with Gonzalez when they all stumble back bloody and grimly alive.

When it rains, it pours.  Two days of downtime have him itchy under the collar.  He picks at Frank’s guitar until he gets the melody in his head right.

“Here’s some good old white trash Americana for you, Gun.”

He hacks out the opening lines to Ricky Nelson and watches Gunner’s eyes light up.

_ Hello, Mary Lou, goodbye heart _

_ Sweet Mary Lou, I’m so in love with you _

Gunner’s got a great voice, the fruit of some bluegrass church choir or some wholesome shit like that. 

_ I knew, Mary Lou, we’d never part _

_ So hello, Mary Lou, goodbye heart _

They’re all so bored no one even tells them to shut the fuck up.  Frank’s still got his nose in his book so Billy turns to his bed, hefts one of boots onto the foot rail as he strums.

_ You passed me by one sunny day _

_ Flashed those big brown eyes my way _

_ And ooh I wanted you forever more _

He’s giddy and stir-crazy and that numb-lipped kind of tingly he gets when he has Frank’s attention.  Gonzalez wolf-whistles as Billy bats his eyelashes and finishes the song with Gunner’s deep harmony. 

_ I thought about a moonlit night _

_ Arms around you good and tight _

_ All I had to see for me to say. _

Half the guys are singing along by the final “goodbye heart.”  Their captive audience gives thunderous applause; not like the competition’s too stiff.  They’d tried to race cockroaches last night. 

Soon a deck of cards comes out and most of the guys are playing poker for packets of peanut butter crackers.  Frank’s still reading.

“Hey, you uh?”

Their beds are close enough for Billy to reach across and strum two fingers up Frank’s folded arm.

“You wanna head out back?”

He’s crafting a good play on Frank’s arms being good and tight when Frank flips the page of his book.

“Naw, I’m good.”

“Aw, c’mon Frankie, I’ll –“

“Said I’m good, Bill.”

Billy knows how to fold his face in order.  His teeth clench together but he’s still his old nonchalant self to anyone passing by.  Of course Frank looks in his eyes and frowns.

“Look, Bill, I’m not.”

Frank sighs, a painful sound as it rattles out of his chest.

“We’re not some kinda sing-along lovey-dovey shit, ok?”

Frank’s quiet on his best days but Billy can almost pretend his didn’t hear it when Frank grits it through his teeth. 

“What’re – “

“Christ, Bill, I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Naw, I.”

Billy shrugs, smiles, rolls his eyes, cycles through a panicked inventory of normal human reactions to a bad joke.  His mouth tastes like bile from the first time he’d barfed on a guy’s dick.  Frank’s frowning at him until Billy forces his smile up to his eyes.

“’Course not.  I’m saving myself for Prince Charming.”

A week later, Billy knows William Rawlins’ name and how to turn dead men into gold.

~

Rawlins tells him about the hit two days before it happens.

This isn’t one of Billy’s loose ends to tie up.  Billy keeps his shit in neat knots that no one can hang him with.

Two days.

Springsteen was always too wide-eyed and working class for him.  That doesn’t mean he can’t sing Born to Run in his sleep. The Boss occupies the same ugly soft spot inside him for everything that Frank loves.

Loved.

Things are going good for Billy.  Hidden behind shell corporations and meaningless defense contracts, his empire is brewing.  Anvil.  The surface where you get pounded.  Get it, Frankie?

Billy’s not the hammer.  His hands are clean.

He scrolls through his brand-new phone that’s connected to his brand-new surround sound system in his brand-new warehouse-office-living quarters.

New things thrill him.  Shiny and clean, unblemished by human hands and the muck that he’d scrubbed from his existence.  He’s not some too-skinny foundling who’d been bad-touched by half a dozen family men.  He’s the American Dream writ large, the doe-eyed bootstrapper with a torn rotator cuff that makes women hold him close and swallow his dick.

Lives can be edited, childhoods honed down to the marrow and trotted out as needed.  Billy’s a ladykiller, a self-made man, a millionaire on the rise.  He’s not in love with a married man who can barely look at him when they fuck.

_ Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. _

He doesn’t know if Frank’s ever been to Atlantic City.  Probably.  That’s some New York guinea shit to do.  Motherfucker hadn’t even wanted a bachelor party.  Billy had dragged him to a titty bar downtown and spent all his money on lap dances for himself.

Frank had watched each one.

_ Maybe everything that dies, someday comes back. _

He won’t let himself scroll down to Frank’s number.  It’s better this way.

_ Put your makeup on, fix your hair all pretty, and meet me tonight in Atlantic City. _

~

They never find his body.

Picking at scabs just leaves you ugly, but Billy never forgets.

~

She reminds him of Frankie.

Dinah Madani pins his hands above his head and uses his dick like she just brought it home from Babeland.  He’d fuck her even if she wasn’t an asset.

“Don’t talk,” she orders, when she’s close, her eyes rolling up and two fingers getting down to business on her clit.  Billy bites his lip and obeys.

She’s as easy to play as she is eager to boss him around in bed.  Control is just another thing people crave.  Billy’s made an art of giving people what they want when it suits him.  He eats her pussy while he’s on his knees.  She’s rough with her hands and there’s nothing he can’t pry from her by the time he’s done. 

~

His mother’s not the only person he finds.

Thirty years after her ignominious death in an Albany stairwell, Dolores Esposito gets an elaborate headstone bedecked with angels, garlands of flowers, and “Only You” in ornate script.  It borders on garish.  She would have loved it.

James Roh, it turns out, developed a taste for heroin to rival his love of comic books.  He’s been dead for six years when Billy’s PI turns up a potter’s grave outside Syracuse.  Some sick part of Billy wonders if his last hit had arrived in the good old US of A inside a dead corpsman.

~

Failure isn’t a taste Billy likes.  He’s got bodies and bad press and Dinah Madani on his ass.  It’s more than a shitty cup of hotel coffee can wash down.

That blonde girl’s way too smart for her own good.  Billy’s last plus-one had left him with the brief, cutting explanation that “your eyes just look, like, dead sometimes.”

Karen Page’s eyes are anything but.  He’d brushed her off as a social justice warrior with a hard-on for lost causes, but now he’s not so sure. 

“I think he was looking out for me.”

Billy grinds his teeth together and regrets not killing her when he had the chance.

~

Painted ponies.

It’s good to end it here.  This is how it was supposed to be.  It’s easier to rewrite the narrative when he already knows the lyrics.

The music is as irritating as the last time he heard it.  At least he has Frank all to himself this time.

When does it all turn?  When Dinah comes back like the ghost of everyone he’s fucked?  When he deepthroats Frank’s bullet?

When Frank holds him and looks him in the eyes?

Frank is a killer.  Frank is ruthless, sadistic, merciless in his caresses.  He’s missing too much of his face to say it, but this all would have ended differently if Frank had held him like this, just once, before it all went to shit.

He might be choking on his own blood.  It just tastes like Frank in his mouth. 

“When you look at your ugly, mangled face, you’re gonna remember what you did.”

Things move slower when you’re losing consciousness.  Organ music morphs into a seedy old bassline, Frank’s bloody hand into rough fingers pushing his middle school mouth open.  The last words he hears swell up in his chest, like Frank’s voice and his violence are all inside him where they’re supposed to be.

“You’re gonna remember me.”

_ And then he took me in his arms _

_ With all the tenderness there is, _

_ And when he kissed me, _

_ He made me his. _

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Arroz con gandules](http://www.elboricua.com/arroz_con_gandules.html) and [pasteles](http://www.elboricua.com/pasteles.html) will feed a lot of hungry boys.
> 
> [The Charge of the Light Brigade](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-the-light-brigade) is the inspiration for Iron Maiden's The Trooper. I think Billy would have appreciated that.
> 
> Billy quotes [The Rifleman's Creed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman%27s_Creed).


End file.
